Category Home Improvements

On Friday night it felt like another cool front had blown in, the temps when I left work were down into the lower 60’s.  It felt cold enough that I threw the blankets over the coop after buttoning up the chickens for the night.  Well that trend apparently reversed overnight, it actually got warmer, it was 66 degrees when I got up. By mid-morning it felt downright hot in the sun.

I did a quick round of outside chores before I headed out.  There was a youth track meet being put on by the running club youth team.  The reason I wanted to go was to check out the FinishLynx camera system which is used to time many track events.  It’s a totally different approach to timing as it uses a high speed camera to capture runners as they cross the finish line.

There is a lot more manual involvement with timing the runners in a track event.  Once the runners cross you place the cursor on their chest which correlates with their time.  The good thing is most sprint events have no more than 8 participants in a heat so it isn’t too bad.

My primary interest in the Lynx system was it’s ability to be used as a supplement to a chip timing system.  With the right set up, even if your chip timing system went totally belly up you could still do a reasonable job of timing the event with the camera.  Evidently there is also a lot of demand for someone to time local track events, learning the Lynx system would open the door to doing that type of event if I chose to.  The software back end of things is different obviously than what I am used to but the flow of things is similar, I don’t think it would be difficult for me to pick up.

After the meet I stopped at Home Depot to grab 40 bags of rubber mulch for the pool border.  With conventional mulch 30 bags is the max amount I can safely jam in the bag of the Tacoma.  Since the rubber mulch bags only have .8 cubic yards in them, getting 40 bags into the Tacoma was easy, I could have thrown more in if I wanted to.

I picked up the dogs on the way home as well.  Transporting the dogs in the Tacoma isn’t ideal anymore.  Nicki normally likes to lay in the back of the cab behind the front seats.  With her painful rear legs, getting back there and spinning into her preferred position is difficult.  To make it easier for her I moved the passenger seat all the way forward and placed her in the back.  She still struggled to get in a spot she wanted.  It’s depressing to see her have such a hard time doing things she used to do so easily.

Later in the afternoon Cindy and I worked on spreading the recycled tire mulch.   The 40 bags went further than I expected, I only had a small uncovered section left  less than six feet long.  The 10 bags I picked up on Sunday finished things off nicely.  The finished border looks sharp.  Although each bag of rubber mulch cost three times as much as regular mulch (for half the volume), the stuff should last pretty much forever, eliminating the annual mulching of that border.  The fact that the area will no longer attract termites and will remain “clean” even if the chickens push stuff around adds to the value for me.

Saturday night we decided to stay home and chill.  We rented Whiplash from Xfinity On Demand.  It was a movie that I had heard many good things about depite it being based on a subject I would normally not consider interesting, drumming.

It didn’t take long for the intensity of the film to get ratcheted up thanks to the maniacal yet brilliant conductor that had incredibly high standards and zero tolerance for mistakes.  The movie kept you engaged from start to end and opens up the curtain to just how competitive and pressurized high level music can be.  It really was a great movie and deserves the acclaim given. It gets a solid A from me.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I decided to do the track and back run once again.  The continued warm and humid weather made us shove out the door early.  I noticed a big difference in how I felt during the run thanks to the higher temps and humidity.  My desire to stop hit critical levels several times on the return leg of the run.  I just felt sort of miserable.

As I was running I was thinking about my running club buddies that were participating in the Hooters Half Marathon at that same moment.  Doing 13.1 miles in these conditions would have SUCKED.  I also felt a little lame, since I ran that race three years in a row but have not done it the last two years.  Running a half marathon right now is totally off the radar at my current level of endurance.  I just don’t have the drive or ambition to put in the time/work necessary to run a half at this point. Despite the heat Cindy and I covered the distance at an avergae pace 20 seconds a mile faster than our prior best.

When we got back we showered and climbed in the van for a two headed errand, stopping at Home Depot and Rural King.  At Home Depot, where we got our carpet estimate that was crazy high, we talked to some other guy that was the head of the flooring department.  Talking to him was a world of difference from the woman we talked to the week before that seemed to be little else than an order taker.  He took a much more consultative approach.

I told him how the high estimate we got pretty much knocked my socks off.  We started talking about other possibilities.  We came down to two options, both of which involved quoting carpet that was still good quality (15 year wear warranty) but significantly less expensive, as in less than half the cost of the stuff on the first quote.  The first option was just carpeting the entire house with this carpet but still using the high quality padding.  The second option was a bit more daring (and expensive).  It would involved putting down ceramic tile that actually looks like wood in the main living area and doing carpet in the bedrooms.

At first glance we thought this might be more price efficient since the tile was only $1.98 a square foot.  However our flooring guy said the gotcha is the installation cost for tile is sky high, reaching close to $3 a square foot.  Of course having done some ceramic tiling myself years ago I knew first hand how much of a pain in the ass it can be.

If Cindy and I commit to being the grunt labor for the project, pulling out the old carpet and moving all the furniture ourselves we can knock another good chunk off the estimate.  So I am waiting to hear back what the new numbers are and will go from there.  Doing the ceramic tile would dramatically change the look of the main area obviously as well as being more durable.  However just going with some less expensive carpet will still renew the interior of the house to a lesser degree while allowing me some left over capital to do other things.

During the errands I noticed the van is developing a new issue with the AC system.  It felt like the compressor wasn’t running normally.  The air coming out of the vents would be warmish and then randomly the compressor would kick in and deliver cold air.  Just as randomly it would shut off again.  My first thought was the refrigerant level was low so when I got home I tried adding some however since the compressor was not randomly running at that moment I was seeing 100 PSI on the low pressure inlet which is high.  I need to try to get a reading while the compressor is engaged. A quick search online indicated this could mean that the AC compressor is starting to fail.  If that is the case it could be the beginning of the end for the party van.  I’m not dumping lots of money into something that is already on the radar to be phased out or replaced down the road.

Early in the afternoon we headed over to Cindy’s brother’s new place which is in our general vicinity but even more remote.  With the tragic passing of his wife right in the middle of him trying to move into their new place he has a hell of a mess to deal with.  Cindy and I offered to come over and lend a hand however we could.  There were a bunch of people at the house already when we got there.  The house as you could expect was in disarray with items just stacked everywhere.  They actually closed on the house back in December.  JP has been diligently trying to do some upgrades prior to moving in.  They got a lot of stuff done like repainting and putting down new flooring everywhere however there was still stuff in progress like one of the bathrooms and the kitchen which has new cabinets and sink but no counter tops and the sink was not hooked up.

My first task involved cutting a temporary sink mounting surface out of a hunk of pressboard.  The thought was it could be used to at least add some functionality back into the kitchen.  Unfortunately the only new faucet set we could find in the place was not designed for this type of sink which utilized a single hole for hot and cold water.  I then just sort of helped out where I could, Cindy got at least a couple of the rooms somewhat organized which was good.

I felt badly for JP, not only could I identify with what he is going through because of what happened with my mom, I also could feel how overwhelmed he was having so much to do and handle with his wife no longer by his side to help him.  If there was any good to be had from this tragic situation it was that apparently there are a large amount of people willing to help out wherever they can.  Before we left I told him if there was something that came up that he needed more help with to let me know. He literally has weeks and weeks of labor in front of him.

When I dropped the dogs back off at Ali’s place this morning I was taken back when I saw a Kia Sportage in the garage.  Over the weekend Ali traded in her Volt that I thought she was so pleased with for the Sportage, a small SUV.  I had no idea she was even considering a change of vehicles, hence my surprise.  The Sportage is a nice vehicle but her days of zero gas work commutes are over obviously.  On the plus side the dogs should have more room to spread out.

When I got home Monday night I saw my neighbor talking to the guy on the other side of him, something I never saw before.  When I got out of my truck he called over to me as well.  I walked over and asked him what was up?  He asked if I saw his truck parked outside that morning when I went to work.  I told him I don’t really know, I don’t recall taking notice one way or another.  He said his truck was stolen. What???

He pointed to the tire tracks in his yard that looks like they were left by something with dual wheels (tow truck or flat bed).  His 2005 full size Ford 4×4 was locked with no keys in it yet it was plucked clean from his property.  My neighbors theory is they winched it up onto a flat bed although I saw no drag marks on the driveway from pulling something that had locked wheels.   The area the truck was parked was directly under the street light that is next to their driveway, making the thieves act even more brazen and surprising.

Of course my first thought was of the Tacoma and party van, both of which are typically outside and unlocked.  As soon as I finished talking with my neighbor I immediately went over and locked both of them, a habit I will need to establish going forward.  Because of our location near the beginning of a relatively busy street I just never thought a criminal would pick the houses in that area as a target, something more secluded and less lit would make more sense.  This may have literally been a “gone in 60 seconds” scenario.  Both Cindy and my sense of security has been rattled a bit as a result.

So I worked from home yesterday to accommodate the appointment I had to have the house professionally measured for potential carpet installation.  It was one of those deals where they give you a window of arrival times.  Since I can do the vast majority of my job anywhere that has an internet connection it worked out well.

For whatever reason I expected the guy that did the measuring to be a carpet installer as well.  Well that certainly was not the case, he basically knew nothing about carpet installation.  His skill set involved using a measuring tape and inputting those measurements into an iPad.  I asked him 4 or 5 questions regarding the installation and gave up after getting a “I don’t really know” as the answer each time.

By the time the guy finished he had a virtual blue print of the house floor plan on the tablet.  He said I will have a precise estimate by sometime today.  I found this funny since Cindy and I have not even decided what we are putting on the ground yet.  I can only be sure that it isn’t going to be something that is going to cost nearly $5 a square foot for just the carpet, not counting the pad.

Yesterday I went into the small shed to see if I still had the box for the tile that is installed in the kitchen, utility room and one bathroom.  I actually had one unopened box left over.  I was rolling around ideas that if I could find more of the same tile, the main living area could be tiled with the bedrooms just getting fresh rug.  However the fact that I got that tile some 12 years ago on clearance from Home Depot makes the possibility of scoring that exact type very, very remote.

Yesterday I did a backyard lunch workout that involved pull ups and my 300 pound tire.  My production of exercise themed videos has slowed to a dribble the last few months.  Producing two in one day is unheard of anymore. I also created a short, “Meet the new chickens” video to boot.

A little before 5 I headed outside to get the long section of the pool border covered in weed block.  I let the chickens out while I was out there which they greatly appreciated.  When they first are let out of the coop they act like it is a jailbreak, sprinting, jumping and flapping their wings as they head for their favorite hang out spot under the birds of paradise.  This moment is almost always followed up with Nona, the bully of the group starting a fight with either Curly or Kathy.  Evidently the chicken pecking order with the four of them is still getting sorted out.

After about an hour of work I had the long section covered, leaving only the 20 feet or so on the far side to go.  If I am feeling ambitious I might have the rest of the project completed by the end of the upcoming weekend.

Friday after work I was running around like a mad man trying to get my triple headed grocery monster tamed.  First stop was the dreaded Costco where the relentless rude mobs of customers suck every ounce of enjoyment out of shopping there.  However my need for Costco pizza to pull off a successful Friday night pizza party made the trip unavoidable.

I was picking up the dogs on my way home as well so to avoid back tracking I decided to stop at a Publix other than my normal stomping grounds.  Well that decision of course opened up a Pandoras box of frustration as I didn’t know where shit was, requiring me to go up and down most aisles.  Since I was trying to rush, snaking around the dozens of aisle clogging old people was more aggravating than normal.

The last stop was Sam’s where I needed Mexican Coke and a few other items.  By the time I was finished I had Cindy’s passenger seat stuffed with groceries.  I only put limited items in the folded down back seat since I needed to keep room for Nicki and Sadie.  By the time I got the girls they were surrounded by grocery items.  Sadie was disappointed that the front seat she normally likes to occupy was taken.  When I got home Cindy asked what took me so long which I am sure I responded with a WTF face to.

As is customary when the dogs are over, Sadie started trying to wake me up as soon as a trace of daylight was in the bedroom window Saturday morning. When we got out the lanai door I was surprised to see ANOTHER racoon was in the trap, the smallest one yet.  Sadie somehow did not see it and ran right past the trap.  When she did see it of course she was interested and came storming over.  The raccoon greeted her curiosity with a hiss and a swipe although it landed against the inside of the wire cage.  Sadie’s hair on her back stood up and she started growling back at the raccoon.  I had her go back inside before things got out of hand.

So my first task of the morning was taking this little racoon to the same spot at the sanctuary to release him.  He genuinely looked scared and I did nothing to exasperate his fear, I handled the trap gently and waited patiently before he made a dash out of the opened door.  I hoped he managed to find the other raccoons I released if they were indeed part of the family.

When I got back the first outdoor tasks involved undoing the substantial frost prep I had done on Thursday night.  It appears that despite temps only 3-4 degrees above freezing the landscape has escaped pretty much unscathed which I was happy about.  While we were working outside I told Cindy I wanted to let the chickens out.  The dogs hadn’t acted any differently towards the new chickens than they did to the old ones but Cindy was nervous about letting them out to mingle.  I had more confidence in Sadie behaving herself so I let the birds out.  As I hoped the dogs acted just fine with Sadie ignoring the chicks and Nicki slowly “chasing” them around the yard from time to time.

We then piled everyone in the van to run some errands, the biggest of which was a stop at Home Depot.  We first went to the customer service desk.  Cindy had her DD214 with her that proves her military service, she was told previously that if she presents that at a store they can add her phone number to a database so she automatically gets the veteran 10% discount.  The guy we were talking with was not familiar with the program so he asked another woman that was next to him.  The woman assumed a bitchy disposition when she pointed to a piece of paper that had the rules for the discount.  Evidently you need a special ID card to get the full time military discount.  The DD214 is only valid on certain holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July etc…  It was good to get the information but neither Cindy or I appreciated that the woman took a stance almost like we were trying to scam the system, nasty bitch.  The guy that helped us originally apologized, it seemed that he caught the bitch vibe as well.

Our next stop was in the carpeting department.  For quite a few years I have had replacing the carpet in the house on my peripheral of to do’s.  The carpet in there is in decent shape thanks to tireless robotic vacuuming and semi-regular shampooing but it needs to come out.  It’s the 14 year old builder grade carpet, which like many things in the house, was not high quality.  The only saving grace was we got the thicker 1/2″ pad which helped make up for the so so carpet.  Since I had my tax refund in the bank I thought it would be a good time to get some numbers on replacing the rug.

Cindy suggested that a hard surface in the main living area might be cool since it is the highest traffic area.  I agree it might be cool but I think my only option would be hardwood flooring since I have tile in the kitchen already.  I assume having two different types of tile would look pretty stupid.  I already know my foundation is far from flat from the issues I had installing tile where I did so I don’t know what sort of challenge that would present doing something like hardwood or laminate.  I also don’t know if I would like that huge open space with a hard surface. If I got carpet I was going to get the good stuff obviously backed up again with thick high quality 1/2″ padding.  Cindy suggested a mixed color rug, containing the various colors in the house, tans, whites, blacks, grays would be neat and also help hide stains.

It didn’t take long for Cindy and I to see a sample we liked.  It was part of HD’s “Platinum Plus” carpet which has extreme stain resistance and a 25 year wear warranty which is pretty impressive.  The price for this sample on the board listed at something like $3.69 a square foot.  So doing some quick math in my head using the floor layout I had with me from when the house was built which showed roughly 1200-1300 of carpeted surface, I figured I am well below 5k.  Pricey for sure but worth it for high quality carpet. Home Depot had a promotion that free BASIC installation was included for any purchase over $1500 so I figured that would help save me significant money as well.

We were helped by a woman in the department who sat down with me to run some numbers and in the process deliver me a huge surge of sticker shock.  There were some things I was not considering in my mental number and other things I just did not expect.  For some reason I did not factor in the padding which at 89 cents a square foot for the good stuff adds well over $1000 to the price. I also quickly found out the the basic install is basically a joke.  More or less if you gut the carpet and move all of the furniture yourself then the install is free.

When our old neighbors had their flooring replaced the crew ripped out the old carpet and moved the furniture around on a room by room basis to get the work done.  Sure Home Depot will do that for you if you want, they will just charge you a bunch of money extra for it.  Plus they have all these stupid guidelines, for example, if they move less than 6 furniture items per room it is one cost but if they move more than 6 it is more, charging for removal based on square footage and other nickel and dime shit I found annoying.

So after a lot of data entry the woman handed me the estimate which she said she figured high.  Part of the process was scheduling (and paying for) a professional measurement that would determine the final quote.  I glanced at the total dollar amount and tried to not react with violent nausea all over the woman’s desk.  The quote was over $9000.  Cindy was off looking at back splash tile when I was handed the quote so she didn’t know the number until I handed it to her as we walked around.  She thought it was outrageous as well.  As we looked at the quote in more detail later Cindy noticed that the woman listed the carpet we liked as being something like $4.69 a square foot, a full dollar more than what was posted.

So at this point my game plan is to get the $35 professional measurement and then use it as a tool to shop around for a more reasonable quote.  Sure I expected the Home Depot number to be somewhat inflated due to the additional layer of profit taking inserted between them and the installer but $9000 to me just seemed outrageous to carpet 1300 square feet of household.

After the carpet sticker shock our final stop in the store was the outdoor garden section where we picked up 18 castle wall blocks as well as 10 bags of rubber mulch to start the pool border renovation project.  I had already picked up 220 feet of commercial grade weed block at Costco on Friday for the project.

The castle block was to be put around the border of the small pond.  I had some shitty looking plastic fence around there that I wanted to get rid of for awhile.  I needed something solid and heavy to prevent the chickens from kicking mulch into the pond, something the old chickens were quite adept at.  The new border looked better and should perform better as a barrier to pond debris.

I also finally got motivated to fix the blocks around the palm trees/bird of paradise that are in front of the cage.  When I installed the block over 10 years ago I was a novice and had them on the ground upside down, with their alignment line upward.  I didn’t realize I had them upside down until 5 years later.  For whatever reason it took me another 5 years to actually fix it.

From years of dogs running around this area and more recently chickens digging in the same vicinity most of the blocks were totally buried.  I used the post bar to pop each one out and them used a shovel to loosen and level the dirt so I would have a clearly defined border once again.  When I placed the old blocks back on the ground I expanded outward slightly to accommodate the tremendous growth of the birds of paradise over the last decade.

The chickens seemed to appreciate the new higher wall to their playpen.  They seemed more secure and content to be nestled in the plants with the blocks on higher ground.  The chickens free ranging playtime was cut short when the damn hawk flew overhead screeching away.  I quickly herded the chicks back to to the safety of their coop and run.

The final part of my Saturday outdoor work was covering the shortest leg of the patio border with weed block and rubber mulch.  The work wasn’t overly difficult except for the toll it takes on my knees.  Crawling on all fours is an activity that I just can not do for extended periods of time anymore.  I really liked the end result of the block/mulch.  I LOVE that when I am done, it will require next to no maintenance and the chickens will no longer be able to fling mulch dust against the pool cage.

On Saturday night Cindy and I went out to see Kingsman, a flick based on a comic book series I never heard of involving British super spies.  I really did not know what to expect but from the previews it looked like a decent action film.  It turned out to be a decent action film with some funny and totally random moments I did not expect.

The cinematography of the action portions of the movie were shot in a very cool manner, in a somewhat Matrixy sort of way.  There also was a lot of in your face and pretty gross carnage but somehow it managed to remain cartoon-like as to not become overly realistic.  Some of the violence was downright hysterical at times and the very loud and unexpected mention of a sexual act into the middle of the action brought both gasps and laughs from the audience, depending on your moral compass.  I found the movie entertaining once Cindy brought me a soda to help wake me up from the initial drowsiness I was suffering from.  I’d give it a strong B+, I don’t know that Cindy would say the same.

Sunday morning we opted for a ride instead of a run as my right knee was feeling swollen from the work on my knees the day before.  We did the Dunkin Donut ride instead.  Early on Cindy was doing a lot of complaining about the temperature even though it was around 65 degrees, considerably warmer than the last ride we did.  Evidently she didn’t dress as heavily for Sundays ride.  I was in my normal bike outfit and felt a little cool early but fine once we had a few miles in.

We held a pace of nearly 21 mph during the long traffic light free portion of the ride.  I figured on the ride back we would pay the price with a bad headwind.  Lucky for us the wind was more of a crosswind heading east and allowed Cindy, who lead the entire way back, to hold 18+ mph for most of the 10 miles.  Overall we averaged 18.8mph for the ride, equaling what Randall and I pulled off a few weeks prior, impressive.

On Saturday Cindy had given Nicki a much needed haircut with the electric pet shaver.  On Sunday after the ride she gave both of the dogs much needed baths as a follow up.  We did something different, abandoning the normal tub bathing for a driveway session using the hose.  I was worried that it would be too cold for them but they didn’t really seem to mind.  Nicki especially seems to like the personal spa sessions with Cindy.

Over the weekend Cindy and I digested portions of the SNL 40 year special in small chunks.  I have to say as a whole I was disappointed.  Here are some of my questions/observations:

– The show was filled with montages of old clips but each clip was cut too short to get much out of any of them.

– the Kanye West performance was stupid and got FF’d

– is it me or can Paul McCartney not sing anymore? His voice sounded really rough.

– What did Paul Simon do to his face?  I can’t tell if it was plastic surgery, botox or both?

– Why were most of the actual live skits they did so weak?

– WTF is Eddie Murphy’s problem?  You couldn’t participate in one skit or say one funny thing after Chris Rock gave you a sickeningly over the top ass kissing intro?

– Miley Cyrus’s new hair is not flattering.  She can actually sing a little bit but she got FF’d as well after 60 seconds or so.

– Holy shit did Chevy Chase get fat.  It made me sad to see him that way, sincerely. Cindy didn’t recognize him.

So anyway like I said, as a whole I thought the special was disappointing although it was cool to see so many talented and funny people in one room together.  I just expected a lot more laughs.

The rest of my Sunday was mostly just chilling out virtually in WoW which I really enjoyed.  Cindy had her own stuff to do so it worked out well.  After feeding the dogs dinner I took them home.  Once again Ali was not home and once again I felt guilt as I saw the dogs sad faces being left with nothing but a radio to keep them company.

This morning I was not happy to see ANOTHER raccoon had become a live trap resident.  This one appeared to be an adult female as Cindy saw her nipples as she hung sideways on the cage.  Knowing this was a female bothered me as I had no way of knowing if she had babies somewhere waiting for her to return.   She also was the least aggressive of the four raccoons I have caught.  There was not a single hiss or strike the entire time I was handling the cage.  I left the house early to give me time to release the animal where the other three have been relocated.  I hope they are all part of the same family and wind up reuniting at some point.

Part of the reason the raccoons are visiting the yard has nothing to do with the chickens.  They come to scavenge the seed from the bird feeders.  For years I have had low feeders randomly knocked to the ground which I now am sure is a raccoons handiwork.  If I wanted to discourage more from showing up I could relocate or remove the feeders, a step I have not taken because we both enjoy seeing the birds hang out in the yard through the back windows of the house.  I may have to give up that pleasure unless I want to take up live animal trapping as a second profession.

I spent over an hour and a half after work covering what I could in the landscape.  The strong winds that were leading the cold front made the task extra challenging and frustrating.  The garden was covered with fabric that is normally used to line the ground underneath a pond liner.  I then hold the fabric down with a combination of olympic weight plates, wood, tools, bricks, and anything else laying around that weighs a few pounds. The plants along the pool mostly were wrapped individually with standard frost cloth with more heavy objects and staples to keep it in place.

I had the chickens out the entire time I was working.  They are definitely getting more comfortable around me, not flinching when I am close by and even following me around at times.  Curly is the most inquisitive chicken right now, she will follow me almost anywhere, hoping I will drop a treat.

Getting the chickens back into the coop area when I was finished took some patience.  I got three of the four back in with a cracked corn bribe but Lola, the smallest and presumably youngest chicken was off doing her own thing.  I slowly herded her towards the coop but had to complete at least a half dozen circles until I was able to scoop her up and put her inside.  I try to make sure I don’t CHASE the chickens as I don’t want to make them scared of me.  When they go back in I always make sure they are rewarded, just like you do with a dog when it behaves well.

So after completing the outdoor cold prep it was time to work on the reverse osmosis leaking issue.  After a lot of futzing around I was able to get the head unit loose so I could take a look at it.  What I saw was a lot of nastiness and scuzz where the hoses go into the faucet.  I then started to weigh trying to clean/fix the leak versus just pulling the damn system out.  Although it has worked well for me over the years, the cartridges are very expensive and I don’t know that the water comes out tasting any better or being any cleaner than a Brita pitcher.  The reverse osmosois holding tank is enclosed, after 6-7 years of service I can only imagine what the inside of it looks like.

I hopped on Amazon and priced out a Brita pitcher which was less than $25.  I then conferred with Cindy, asking if she had any problem with me just ripping out the RO system and using a simple Brita pitcher for our water needs.  She didn’t care at all, in fact she used to have a Brita pitcher when she lived by herself and liked it.  So out came the scissors.  I cut the main feed and drain line and pulled the head unit out.  I then yanked the big holding tank and filter assembly out as well and lugged it all to the garage.  I plan to deposit it all by the curb for one of the local scavengers to snap up.

I had to do some reconfiguring of stuff under the sink, namely the water line that feeds the fridge which used to be tied into the RO system.  At first I was worried I did not have the right combination of fittings to make it all work but by repurposing some of the stuff I cut out I was able to make it work.   The RO removal opened up a lot of extra room under the sink as well as allowing us to clean up and throw out items in there that were no longer needed.

I hopped on Amazon and ordered the 10 cup Brita pitcher.  If that proves to be inadequate for our water needs they also have a large 18 cup reservoir that would get the job done.  Of course the level of filtration a carbon activated system like the Brita uses is not as extensive as RO but I really don’t think we will be able to tell the difference since even water straight out of the tap isn’t bad.

I am picking up the dogs on the way home tonight for an all weekend sleepover visit.  It will be the first time the dogs get to see the new chickens.  We will have to start the familiarization/trust process all over again.  I’d also like to start phase 2 of the 3 phase pool border project which would be recovering the area in weed block cloth so that it can then be later covered in rubber mulch.  Other than that, normal weekend guidelines are in place.

On Friday I left work early to get a head start on covering up the property from the cold air which was predicted to drop into the 30’s in our part of town.  My prep is less extensive than it used to be, I basically just cover the garden and move anything that is in a pot inside the shed.  Cold prep also means we move the chicken coop as close to the house as possible as well as covering it up with some old comforters to block cold air.  It turned out it didn’t get cold enough to do damage but it was good insurance anyway.

The 39 degree air Saturday morning did make it challenging to time the 5K.  Cindy and I both bundled up majorly for the event.  I had 4 layers on up top.  The race was very small, not even cracking 200 participants.  Timing the event for me went pretty much flawlessly.  The only issue I had was one older guy that crossed the line with a dead chip later in the race that I caught immediately.

The race did have one wart.  The course is a simple out and back.  Well the turnaround point was misplaced which made the course nearly 2 tenths of a mile long, that’s pretty bad.  Course measurement is beyond the scope of my responsibility however.  In the past I would have probably made a bigger fuss about it, as an accurate course is one of the basic fundamentals of putting on a race.  However nowadays I keep my concerns more focused on the areas I have direct control over and responsibility for. Cindy and I rolled out of there by a little after 9:30 and were home by a little after 10.  Much like the race itself, the post race work at home was nice and tidy, things were back to normal before we ate lunch.

Saturday afternoon we worked around the house, undoing most of the cold prep I had done the day before as well as a number of smaller to do’s.  It was Valentine’s Day after all so we didn’t want to make the labor too exhaustive, although Cindy decided that she needed to do some weight work and back yard sprints just for fun at one point.

Before we went out to dinner we exchanged our small presents.  Our big present was the iPad Air that we both will get use out of.  Cindy got me some special half gloves that are specifically designed to protect the hands from getting ripped up during bar work.  Last week my hands were hamburger from two callouses that tore open. I got Cindy a cute little necklace of two giraffes with their necks wrapped around each other in a cute way.  One has small black diamonds (me) and the other has small white diamonds (Cindy).  It just seemed like a good depiction of our relationship.

I had suggested something that may have sounded borderline insane for dinner, Carrabbas.  Surely the place would be just mauled with people on a Valentine’s Day that fell on a Saturday night.  Our plan was to go earlier to perhaps lessen the blow.  Even if it was a mob scene I was prepared to just drink beer and people watch until we got a table.

So we pulled in shortly before 6PM and were handed a buzzer with an estimated wait time of 90 minutes.  Now normally this would scare me off but like I said we were prepared for a big number.  We made our way over to the bar area and ordered some drinks.  The new layout of the restaurant has made standing around the bar pretty inconvenient.  There just isn’t room to do it with the long bar seating tables wedged in there now.  There really is no good area to just stand around in and drink.  Ironically this wound up working in our favor.

Cindy spotted two ladies at the bar getting up to leave.  Since there was no room for anyone to stand near by that meant we had a clear shot to snagging those two chairs which we did.  Neither Cindy or I minded eating at the bar.  I handed my buzzer back in to the hostess, feeling like we just gamed the system, 90 minutes turned into 9 minutes.  We had a perfectly enjoyable meal at the bar, the three female bartenders were all very personable.  We were out of there by 7:30 and on our way back home.  Instead of going to the movies we thought we could watch John Wick, which I had waiting in the Netflix envelope.

The movie wasn’t quite what I expected.  Sure I figured it was Keanu kicking ass and taking names but it got a little nuts.  By the end of it I realized that John Wick may have just knocked Commando off the throne as the most bad guys killed by a single person in a movie category.  It was like singing Old McDonald substituting “head shot” with any animal reference in the song.  It was literally a head shot here, a head shot there, a head shot everywhere.  Now thankfully they didn’t make the head shots overly graphic or dramatic, for the most part it was just CGI blood.  Still, I thought it was a little nuts.  The movie was a solid revenge themed action flick but I can’t go any higher than a B+ on this one.

Sunday morning it was once again brisk but a few degrees warmer than Saturday.  I talked Cindy into braving the cold to do the roughly 5.5 mile “track and back” run where we run from the house to the middle school track, do one lap, and return the way we came.  We both had on long sleeve shirts when we started and both took them off at the half way water stop.  I personally love running in temps around 50 degrees.  Cindy likes it warmer but she did ok anyway.  This was the first time I tried the T and B since my various knee, calf and groin problems I have dealt with for the last couple weeks.  I was happy to be able to complete the run feeling pretty good and doing so at a pace 10 seconds a mile faster than the last time.

We had some errands to go run which we did in the top down glory of the SSR.  One of those stops was Rural King for the second week in  a row.  For the second week in a row they had baby chicks there and for the second week in a row Cindy was seriously considering adopting some of them.  Once again we were able to resist the temptation and left there with just supplies for the four chickens we already have.

Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped out a little after lunch time.  They were coming to borrow the Tacoma to pick up a table.  Both Katie and Daniel have stopped smoking for the last month and a half which Cindy and I were both very happy to hear.  I also got to check out Daniel’s new 2005 350Z he just picked up.  It’s a sharp set of wheels, maybe a little too sharp for an 18 year old, hopefully he doesn’t get in trouble with it.

Sunday afternoon I decided to begin what I knew was going to be an unpleasant task, stripping out most of the mulch around the pool deck area.  My intentions were to pull out the old mulch and the old weed block beneath it.  I would then later lay down fresh block and recover the area with the shredded tire mulch that lasts forever and will not cause mulch dirt to get spread on the pool deck if the chickens dig in it.  Well this task was very labor intensive.

Normally Cindy would be right in there with me digging and carting but her lower body was very sore from the weight work on Saturday followed up with Sunday’s run.  That left me as the sole pack mule.  The mulch removal process was slow, dirty and aggravating.  I would try to grab the edge of the weed block and pull it up to allow the mulch to pile up, making it easier to shovel into the yard cart.  Each time I would fill the cart I would drag it to either the orchard or a low spot next to the garden to dump it for repurposing.  It just got to be a lot of labor.

The process was complicated by things that were buried in the mulch like long, steel cable like roots, and the old drip irrigation hose system that I used before I installed the sprinkler system.  It all had to get ripped out.  During this process I discovered that the 14 foot high cactus by the one door has INCREDIBLY long roots, some extending at least 50 FEET from the cactus.  It was pretty incredible.

As I was outside I had the chickens out of their coop as well.  However I also kept an eye on the sky.  Over the weekend Cindy and I noticed a hawk perched in the backyard with a clear eye on the birds.  It’s bad enough to have to deal with raccoons waging a ground assault on the birds, now we also have to watch for aerial attacks as well.  I had my Crossman air rifle out there with me and actually took a shot at the hawk as it was in the tree to scare it off.  I didn’t aim for the bird of course, just close enough for it to get the idea it wasn’t welcome.

The chickens loved being able to roam about although they spent most of their time nestled deep inside the one bed area, giving themselves dirt baths.  It seems clear that they are getting more used to us and don’t see us as threats.

We finished up outside around 6PM.  I was BEAT and running on fumes.  The rest of the night we relaxed and took in another “Better Call Saul” episode, the Breaking Bad spinoff.  I am quite pleased that so far the spin off seems to have a good taste of the flavor that made Breaking Bad so interesting.

Today I am enjoying my government holiday.  I hope to only have a small dose of chores/work mixed in with a big glass of just chilling.

So on Friday two large boxes showed up at my door, they were the two Polywood lounge chairs I bought from Amazon.  Picking up one box let me know the chairs were substantial and well built.  The box was HEAVY.  After we devoured our Friday night pizza I got busy with assembling the chairs.

Really the only negative we read about the chairs online was the assembly was a pain for some people.  Well there were less than a dozen parts so I didn’t understand the complaints.  Once I started to bolt things together I got some appreciation.

If you use the two included allen wrench tools I  can see where it could be a pain.  The holes you were inserting the bolts into were in positions where you couldn’t get full turns.  Since most of the bolts were relatively long that meant you would be turning, pulling out, inserting, and turning some more quite a bit which would get tedious.  Of course if you have a cordless drill with allen wrench inserts things become stupidly easy.  After trying the manual method for a couple minutes I quickly grabbed my power tools.

Cindy of course was my assistant in the process helping hold and align pieces where necessary.  The chairs felt sturdy and looked great, well up to the task of surviving their incredible 20 year warranty. I also loved that they are made in the USA, such a rare thing with most material goods nowadays. Over the weekend Cindy scored some inexpensive cushions to complete the look.

The chairs were part of completing the pool deck repaint/renovation project.  The black chairs went well with all of the other old furniture that Cindy renovated with some black paint/stain.  The project was more involved than I anticipated but we both are very happy with the fruits of our labor.

Putting the pool deck back together was part of what was an unbelievably laborious Saturday.  I started work around 8:30 and put in a full blue collar day, not finishing up until after 5.  I could not even attempt to list everything that was attended to but I would not surprised if it added up to a couple dozen things.

Of course Cindy was a big part of getting things done, including taking down the interior Christmas decorations.  De-christmasing always brings it with some degree of unavoidable melancholy for me.  I wasn’t as bummed out as I have been other years but it still was a downer.

During the day Saturday Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped by to pick up my old recliner which I told her she could have for her apartment.  This is the recliner that my mom bought for me for my 30th birthday.  It is oversized and designed for a taller/bigger person.

Over the years the ironic thing is other people used the chair more than I did.  Despite it being supposedly made for tall people, the leg rest hit my legs in such a way that just wasn’t all that comfortable for me.  Since Cindy and I pretty much exclusively use my $200 Craigslist sofa set for seating the recliner has seen even less use the last few years.  I even offered it back to my mom when she said she was thinking about a recliner last year.

Well when Katie was over last she said how she loved sitting in it so it was a no brainer.  I was happy to have the chair go somewhere it would be appreciated and used heavily instead of gathering dust.  I think mom would have felt the same.

With the chair out of the great room there was suddenly a large open square of floor real estate open that had not been before.  It felt weird being able to shortcut trips back to the bedroom.  Eventually I would like to put a large pit sofa in the great room but that will be something down the road a bit.

One of the other big projects of Saturday was cleaning all of the floors in the house, dirty from dogs and holiday foot traffic.  I let the Scooba handle the kitchen while I vacuumed the rugs first with the Dyson before hitting it again with my carpet cleaner.  The gallons of dirty water going down the drain made the endless back and forth strokes feel worth it.

On Saturday night Cindy I decided to rent The Interview since it’s bizarre online/theater re-release after it was initially cancelled due to the hacker threats.  It was cool to see a movie that was just released from the comfort of my home.  The movie itself was ok but I thought it relied too heavily on dirty humor and also had some silly gore that made no sense.  Even though I fully support our right to see any movie regarding any subject matter, producing a movie that is based on killing a present day ruling dictator wasn’t a very well thought out plan in my opinion.  I think Cindy summed up The Interview for me when she said “at least it wasn’t Into the Woods”.  I personally would give the movie an average B rating, not really worth all the controversy.

Sunday morning, despite a long day of work the prior day we decided to get out for a run.  Cindy had suggested just running 60 minutes regardless of pace/distance.  I told her I was scaling back my time goal to 45 minutes since I haven’t done more than a half hour of running in months.  I wore my Garmin to check after the run but did not look at it during.

Early on my back, which had be troublesome for nearly a week, was not enjoying the up and down pounding however after a mile or so I warmed up enough that it subsided.  The pace we ran was slow and steady, just at or below the 10 minute mile rate.  Despite the slow pace, as the clock advanced my poor cardio endurance was more and more of a factor.  I finished up 45 minutes   with 4.61 miles covered according to my Garmin.  According to Cindy’s newer Garmin I covered less. Regardless I was pooped, it felt good to start 2015 with a run longer than I covered for most of 2014.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty slow paced, especially in comparison to the non-stop pace of Saturday.  Cindy however kept herself quite busy as I spent time in WoW accomplishing virtual tasks.  Despite working myself hard on Saturday and starting Sunday with a run, the net result was with me feeling lazy at the end.

I forgot to mention on here that I stopped buying/consuming cow’s milk this past week.  Although I have known for years the negatives of consuming cow’s milk I have continued to do so in smaller amounts.  My entire life I have always been a heavy milk drinker.  I will be replacing cows milk with almond milk instead.  I have been drinking the unsweetened almond milk variety (make sure it doesn’t have carageenan) with my lunch for awhile, I will be drinking the 60 calorie variety as my cow milk replacement.  I don’t think it will be that hard of a change to make, despite nearly a half century of drinking the bovine stuff.

As I sit here with a wrenched back from four days of work on the pool deck I figured it was a good time to recant my extended time off which started last Thursday with Christmas day.  The longer I go without emptying my memory banks, the more detail is lost to the mists, never to be recalled again.

So Christmas Eve and Christmas day were good except for Cindy’s health, which was poor.  Unfortunately Christmas day she felt the worst.  Of course I could identify since I had been battling what I assume is the same strain of illness for nearly three weeks.  Since Cindy’s daughter and mom had already stopped by on Tuesday night Cindy and I had a very solo Christmas.  Of course mom’s absence added to the more isolating feel.  I did position her glasses overlooking the Christmas tree, as if that made a difference.

Thankfully we had the dogs who for whatever reason seem to understand and recognize that Christmas = fun for them.  Both Nicki and Sadie had big dog smiles most of the morning.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that we both went overboard on Christmas presents.  To have close to 40 presents (some were small of course) for just two people was a little crazy.  I just like getting stuff for Cindy, it’s a small token of how much I appreciate everything she does for me on a daily basis 365 days a year.  The ironic thing is although of course Cindy likes presents, it’s the last thing she really cares about.  She isn’t materialistic at all.

She was flabbergasted as I put box after box in front of her to rip apart.  For the most part I did a good job and a lot of the stuff I got had side benefits for me like cool kitchen items to assist Cindy in her fabulous food prep she does for me.  The Kindle Fire HD7 I got Cindy also was my ticket to being able to play Hearthstone on a tablet.  It won’t run well on the Galaxy Tab I got last year but seems to run pretty smoothly on the Fire.

Cindy got me way too much stuff as well.  Obviously she feels that my wardrobe is a bit dated as she hooked me up with a number of cool clothes.  She also got me some other cool little things that to be honest I haven’t gotten to dig into yet thanks to the deck project. On Christmas I got to talk to Todd, Torrin and my dad which was nice.  Those calls carry a bit more meaning now that mom is gone and I have no family in the area any longer.

During the day we worked mostly on clean up and consolidation of the huge influx of gifts into the household.  By 2 or 3PM we had most of the legwork completed.  I was feeling my seemingly unavoidable post-Christmas round of depression set in.  I can’t really explain why it happens.  I just know after all the presents are opened, the Christmas music is turned off and the clean up begins I feel down in the dumps. I think mom not being there made it a little more heavy this year.

For the past few years  I have attended the Christmas party that is held by the running club president and his wife in their beautiful home in Naples proper.  We were once again invited to go and originally planned to attend.  However Cindy was feeling pretty miserable and I just didn’t see the point of going with her being sick and me feeling 180 degrees away from the partying mood.  The dogs were happy we decided to stay home with them I’m sure.

So on Friday I had off but Cindy had to work.  My original plan was to go get all of the stuff needed to repaint the pool deck but it turned into a lot more driving than that.  One of the big things I got for Cindy for Christmas was a gift certificate to have all of the windows in her Prius tinted.  It’s something she had talked about wanting to get done from day one but didn’t get around to yet.

I called the shop I got the gift cert from on Friday, wanting to see if we could set up an appointment on Monday or Tuesday to get the work done since we were both off.  I was taken off guard when the owner said he can do it right now.  Ok, I said, I’ll get it there, even though I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to make this work since Cindy took the Prius to work.

What followed was a probably close to a couple hundred miles of driving.  I told Cindy of the open slot to get the work done.  She was excited to get it done and said she could get out of the office for a few minutes.  I arranged to meet her at the window tint place and then drop her back off at her office which was about 10 minutes away.  I had the dogs along of course so they were quite happy to ride along for however long it would take.

When we dropped the Prius off the guy said it should only take a couple hours to do the work.  So I told Cindy maybe I could run my errands and then come back and drop her off to get the car.  After dropping her off I was all over the place including a stop at Lowes to get the supplies for the pool deck repaint.

I brought some of the left over paint from when the deck was done last and asked the paint guy if they could color match it.  Well their idea of color matching was taking a dab of the old paint, drying it and then holding it up to the color card for their pool deck product, looking for a close match.  I thought this was going to be a more exact thing where they tint and test to get an exact match.  The color I wound up with was called khaki which was close but definitely lighter than what was already on the deck.  Since we were doing a complete repaint I didn’t really care.  The lighter, brighter color would look good.

I also got two cans of primer designed for the pool deck paint.  I think this is where Rhinoshield botched the job, the guy half ass primed the deck by spraying stuff on in a way that did not cover the surface completely.  I would be rolling and brushing on the primer over every square inch of the deck.

I called the tint place and heard that the Prius was done.  Unfortunately Cindy had to wait for a girl to get back from her lunch break before she could be picked up.  I wasted the additional hour by returning an item to Sam’s, some 10 miles north of Cindy’s office, and dumping 20 gallons of gas into the party van before returning to pick her up.

The Prius looked sharp with the new tint.  The good looks will be backed up with the 80% light/heat blockage the top of the line ceramic tint will provide.  The guy that owns the 1-2 man shop was real laid back and nice.  It felt good to support a small business.  He also happens to be an avid swimmer.  He said he has logged something ridiculous like 4300 miles of swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

So I had spent much more of my day running around than I planned meaning I got home later than I wanted to.  I still needed to at least get something done for the pool deck project that was tangible.  I cleared off the deck of everything and put up the 100 feet of contractor barrier fencing around the perimeter of the pool cage to keep the chickens from kicking mulch onto it after it was cleaned.  Cindy was impressed how much I got done in the brief amount of time I had at home.

On Friday night we chilled and watched Into the Storm, a movie about super tornadoes.  The special effects alone were incredible.  They reproduced the utter destruction of the storm with incredible realism.  The story was just ok but you don’t see  movie like this for the plot.  It was a solid B+ rental for me.

So on Saturday the work on the deck ramped up since both Cindy and I were available to work on it for the next four days.  Unfortunately the dense morning fog that we have experienced every morning has not been helpful, leaving everything moist for half of the morning.  Cindy’s primary job was sweeping up the deck of loose particles with the ShopVac.  I followed behind with the pressure washer.

Since the deck was being repainted I used the pressure washer at point blank range, applying more washing power to the deck.  The additional pressure stripped a ton of the old shitty paint job off all over the place.  Maybe deck paint just isn’t made to withstand 3200 PSI? I also went around with a caulk gun and my index finger filling in the multitude of small hairline cracks that were “fixed” by Rhinoshield but reappeared only a few months later.  I am hoping using the flexible caulk will yield more long lasting results than the concrete patch material they used originally.

So unfortunately that was really all the deck work we could get done on Saturday as the surface had to be absolutely dry before moving to the next step of applying primer.

Saturday night we met up with Lily at Mercato.  Cindy had suggested that we meet up for dinner since Lily was in town visiting family.  I agreed that was a good idea until we pulled into the Mercato complex.  I had given no thought to how miserably full the place would be the Saturday night after Christmas.  We  circled for 20 minutes looking for a parking spot as we passed dozens of parking space mongers, a species I simply have no tolerance for.  By the time we parked on the top level of the parking deck I was annoyed to the max.

Luckily a few beers over dinner settled me down.  We sat at the bar of the Rusty Bucket, a place I got a gift card to for Xmas, and had nice meals while downing a few 20 once Miller Lites.  It was nice to catch up with Lily, Randall’s ex-girlfriend.  Even though their relationship hasn’t worked out we have kept in touch with Lily who is a sweetheart.  After dinner we made a beeline for home, we both have been sleep deprived from the poor sleep we seem to get when the dogs are around.  They seem far too eager to wake us up in the middle of the night.

The dogs, especially Sadie were quite unhappy with being blocked from the pool deck, one of their go to places to hang out at the house.  They camped by the sliding glass door endlessly, hoping to be able to quickly circumvent my leg blockade.

Sunday we again had to start later than we hoped due to the fog.  Once it lifted a bit we got busy spreading primer, a substance that looked and smelled like glue.  It was clear going on, making it a bit hard to tell where you did and did not cover.  Luckily as it dried it developed a white haze which made it easy for us to tell if we missed a spot.

I helped Cindy with the hand brushing of the edges of the pool cage while I let the coping to Cindy alone as she is better with precision painting.  I then grabbed the roller with a 4 foot extension pole and started rolling.  The work didn’t seem too bad at first but after awhile the movement got difficult as I tried to apply significant downward pressure with each stroke to press the primer into the nooks and crannies of the Spraykrete surface.  I systematically worked my way around the deck, finishing up the last few strokes as I stood in the great room, hanging out the sliding door.

Cindy came up with a great idea that I hadn’t thought about, touching up the rusty pool cage screws/bolts, which there are a ton of.  She used a can of white Rustoleum paint and a small brush to dramatically improve the appearance of these formerly rust encrusted bolts.  She figured if there was any time to do it, now would be the time.  She was right, I’m glad she thought of it. (and did the tedious work herself)  🙂

As if we hadn’t been doing enough this weekend, Cindy also started a side task of repairing the timing mats I bought for Green Machine Timing.  Both of the mats have rips in them.  Cindy is using backing material along with considerable hand sewing to fix and reenforce the mats, saving me potentially the $1200 it would cost to replace them.

During the down time over the weekend I shipped two very large boxes.  One was a 95 pound behemoth, containing two 5 meter Ipico mats that the club replaced years ago but were still sitting in my closet.  I sold them to help offset the expense of some new equipment the club bought for timing.  The other 60lb box was the spare tire kit I bought for Cindy’s daughter that it turned out she didn’t need.  I was glad that the place I bought it from agreed to let me return it.

So yesterday we got to the meat of the project, the painting itself.  Having just experienced a day of applying primer our game plan was much the same.  We did the edges, coping and then it was floor rolling time.  Unlike the primer that required a minimum of 8 hours dry time the pool deck paint was ready for a second coat after a couple of hours.  After applying the first coat we ran out to Lowes for a third gallon of paint as I suspected we would not have enough, my suspicion was correct.

By the time I was done rolling the second coat the sun was going down and my body was breaking down.  My back was killing me from the thousands of hunched over rolling strokes.  By the time I finished up I was physically and mentally done with the project, too bad we weren’t actually done in the true sense of the word.

Actually Monday night instead of ending, the project actually expanded. I bought two black PolyWood lounge chairs from Amazon to replace the cheap, shitty, rusty water expelling lounge chairs that have been on the deck for several years.

The purchase of two black chairs inspired some further renovations where Cindy suggested we repaint the brown metal patio furniture to match.  The furniture had some rust on it too so a repaint would make sense and changing the color would give things a fresh new look.  So now our Tuesday, which we originally hoped would be nothing but relaxation was instead loaded up with more to do’s.

When I awoke this morning I paid the price for the endless rolling.  It felt like I had a spear shoved in my back right below my right shoulder blade.  If I twisted the wrong way it brought stop you dead in your tracks, stabbing pain.  I was obviously going to be limited in my functionality.  We headed to Lowes once again, probably the 6th time in as many days I had visited a home improvement super store.  We got spray paint for the metal furniture, stain for the wood stuff along with a few other small items.

I did a few little things but the painting has been exclusively done by Cindy today.  She has been out there for a couple hours at least plugging along.  When all of this labor is done I am sure we will look back on it favorably and with pride, however at this moment, the only description that keeps coming to mind for the last four days has been, “pain in the ass”.

Saw The Giver last night, B+.

Saturday morning Cindy and I were out the door early to head down to Marco Island for the Hill Run.   Cindy was considering running this race as well but she has officially caught what I have had for 3 weeks and counting so she was feeling pretty lousy.

The race was small with numbers only in the low 200’s so timing it wasn’t a problem.  I had no weird glitches with the timing hardware this week.  The only failure I had was one timing bib that was dead as a doornail.  Since the race didn’t start until 8, was 5 miles long and was held in Marco, Cindy and I didn’t get back to the house until after 11am. After attending to post race work I headed outside to knock out a few chores before the Eagles game at 4:30.

So the Eagles were playing the 3-11 Washington Redskins, a team that has been in disarray all year long.  The Eagles had everything to play for since the only way they could ensure a playoff spot was to win their two remaining games against the lackluster Redskins and Giants, a challenging but totally doable scenario. So with it all on the line the Eagles came out and made a statement.  Unfortunately that statement was, “We suck”.

They played an incredibly sloppy game with double digit penalties, missed field goals, defensive backs left 1-1 in situations where they were overmatched and Mark Sanchez’s patented, “turn the ball over at the worst possible time” abilities. I found Chip Kelly’s stoic expression intensely aggravating as the game unraveled.  I was thoroughly disgusted as the ball sailed through the uprights after it left the Redskins kickers foot with 5 seconds remaining.

To make matters worse, one of the biggest reasons the Eagles lost was the Eagles defensive backs, particularly Bradley Fletcher was burned repeatedly by fcking Desean Jackson.  As much of an asshole as I think Jackson is, there is no doubt he is fast as hell and the Eagles just did not find a way to deal with it.

So when you pair the Eagles loss with the Cowboys surprising destruction of the Colts, the team is now officially eliminated from the playoffs. To be 9-3 at one point and not make the playoffs is really, really hard to do. Yet that is exactly what the team has done with this late season collapse. Ironically this is almost a complete reversal from last year where the team started slow but finished strong.

So where does this leave the team going forward?    Well the QB position should still be in the hands of Nick Foles.  Although statistically he was nowhere near as good as last year and he threw a lot of interceptions, at least the team was still finding ways to win.  With Sanchez the opposite has happened, they find ways to lose and many times it is connected to Sanchez turning the ball over in the clutch.  Most of his turnovers seem to be connected to him being indecisive in the pocket, taking just a moment too long to get rid of the ball.

The secondary pretty much sucks from what I can tell.  All season long they gave up 1st downs on 3rd and long far too routinely. This is hard to believe but the team gave up 1st downs on 3rd and 15 or greater an astonishing 33% of the time.  (the league average is 11%) The pressure the front 7 applied requires a a crew of D-backs adept at 1-1 coverage.  The team simply doesn’t have that.

In some ways the season was a bit misleading.  The Eagles wins were mostly built on the back of beating teams with losing records.  Except for a couple occasions, when they came up against the better teams in the league they went down in flames. With that being the case it probably meant that even if they made the playoffs the would have been one and doners once again.  The only positive I can take out of this is maybe this bitter disappointment and collapse will incite some greater change in the lineup next year. Oh well another year, another Eagles disappointment, I’m used to it.

Sunday morning I had it in my head to do a bike ride, Cindy was too sick to be out on the road so I planned flying solo.  For some reason I got it in my head that I should ride all the way out to Ave Maria even though it didn’t make sense based on my current state of wellness/endurance. I have done very minimal riding in the last few months, my last session being a pre-illness DD ride in early November.

In a way I think I wanted to do a long/hard ride just to prove I could still tackle something difficult after a 2014 that has been filled with much more fail than success from a physical standpoint.

Well as the ride began my inspiration eroded quickly.  After only 5 miles in my legs were feeling pretty shitty.  I started running contingency plans through my head like turning around at the 10 mile mark.  Well when I hit 10 miles it felt like I was almost there although it was another couple miles to the entrance, so I kept going.  I did compromise however, only going to the entrance of Ave Maria on Oil Well Road and not traversing the nearly 3 miles into town.  I was just happy to have made it to the sign.

So after chugging some water I reversed directions, content with returning at a significantly slower pace than I headed out at.   I dropped a gear so my cadence speed increased while decreasing the amount of torque I had to apply with each stroke.  Well the combination of the gear change and slightly more favorable wind conditions had a surprising effect, I actually was faster heading back.  The gear change made a big difference in the way my legs felt.  I was trucking 18-19mph much of the return ride.

During the last 25% of the trip a new problem arose, a nose that was flowing like a faucet.  Despite non-stop sniffling and forearm wiping I just could not get my nose under control.  It was maddening at times.  I sniffled my way into the driveway happy with my performance on the 24.25 mile ride and look forward to getting more into the swing of things as 2015 rolls in.

Shortly after I got back Cindy and I headed out to run some errands.  One of the stops was Lowes where I made a couple late additions to my Christmas decorations which were on clearance.  I grabbed a cool tree shaped LED thing which does all sorts of cool patterns, sort of the same way as my LED snowmen already do.  I also grabbed an inflatable, camouflaged Santa, for two reasons.  First I liked that he moves his arm which are holding binoculars up and down. Second, its tacky and silly, something that I don’t mind that much when it comes to holiday decorating.

Cindy was VERY busy on Sunday despite feeling bad, baking her ass off.  She made several cookie varieties as well as roasted pecans. The house smelled like the holidays all day. I am definitely the beneficiary of her love of cooking/baking.  She put our new corner cabinet/counter to good use in the process.

We saw the Hobbit at a very unconventional time for us, 3:15 on a Sunday afternoon.  We were rewarded with a theater that was nearly empty for the 3D showing.  I thought the movie was great just as I have thought every LOTR and Hobbit movie that preceded it was great.   I am a bit sad that the series now has officially run it’s course, great, great, great film making IMO.  It gets an A.

So I am officially the Buffalo Bills of my fantasy football league, losing in the finals for the third consecutive year.  Damn’s it’s frustrating.  Before I went to bed I had almost a 40 point lead despite Tom Brady and ironically the Bills defense underperforming greatly.  Well I awoke to see I had lost due to my opponent having Marshawn Lynch AND the Seahawks defense, both of which had big games.  I was very annoyed.  The annoyance was kicked up when I saw that if I started Tony Romo, who was predicted to score less points than Brady, I probably would have won the game since he outscored Brady 36-11. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

I have a brief 3 day week followed by an awesome 6 days off in a row where I plan to tackle repainting the pool deck with Cindy’s help.

So yesterday morning I received yet another TOS (terms of service) violation email from my good buddies at IX Web Hosting.  Evidently the participants from the Turkey Trot hitting the GCR web site was too much traffic for my “unlimited” shared hosting plan to handle.  As is always the case when this happens, IX simply turns your site off until you contact them.

So I decide to go through their Romanian online chat tech support instead of dealing with their India based phone help desk.  After waiting close to 30 minutes I finally get someone on the other side and after another 20 minutes my site is finally turned back on after I promised to follow the guidelines the support person sent me via email.

Well I have had years and years of problems with IX including their insecure servers which allowed my sites to be hacked repeatedly, poor reliability and performance, highlighted by the SIX DAY outage when they had a SAN crash, and their brilliant decision to outsource their US based call center to India.  The only way you get to speak to an American now is if you want to buy something from them.  If you have a problem you get to deal with an Indian on the other side of the globe who you will be lucky to understand every third word out of their mouth.

So anyway I finally took some action and although it isn’t a total IX divorce it gets me out from under the threat of TOS bullshit.  I migrated the WordPress sites I use for Dufisthenics and the running club to GoDaddy yesterday.  The plan I bought includes up to 5 WordPress installations so I figured I may as well take advantage of it. I am planning to move the blog you are currently reading there as well once I work out a couple bugs.

The GoDaddy hosting I bought is tailored and optimized for WordPress so I shouldn’t have to deal with the normal shared hosting bullshit I have consumed from IX for so long.  Another barrier to me moving hosts was the hassle in doing so.  GoDaddy can make this process stupidly easy.  You provide them access to your current site and they can duplicate it on their hosting in less than an hour.  It’s awesome.

I am actually using a hybrid approach to this since I already have stuff like domain names, DNS and email bought and paid for on IX which works fine.  I would have to pay extra if I wanted to duplicate that service on GoDaddy.  So I am just leaving that stuff as is and just moving the WordPress installations which will basically eliminate the vast majority of my problems with IX.  It feels good to move away from the source of so many of my cyber-headaches.

After work I bought a small palm sander, another kitchen corner inspired purchase.  Cindy used it last night to do all sorts of smoothing and rounding of edges on the table top.  When she was done the counter top had a distressed look that was sort of cool but the plan is for Cindy to hit it with one more layer of stain before finishing it off with a glaze coat.

I had my hole bit attached to my drill last night to drill two holes, one in the inside of the corner cabinet to access the electrical outlet and a second one on the counter top to route the cords through.

This morning I started my Thursday morning unconventionally with prolonged, laugh out loud inciting videos.  The first was LA Beast swallowing 15 hot dogs without chewing them.

The second video was a hilarious scientific explanation of how to find a wife using careful formulas that utilize a crazy versus hot graph.  It is amazingly funny.

So on my lunch hour yesterday I bought some thinner material to use for bracing the poplar boards that we made the top out of.  I found some 1/4″ thick plywood fencing material that looked promising.  I also grabbed a box of shorter 1-1/4″ wood screws so I wouldn’t have the clearance issues I had with my first bracing material.

When I got home I wasted little time after taking care of the dogs and chickens.  Despite a shoulder that was killing me all day I managed to get the counter top into the garage by keeping my left arm pinned to my side as I lifted. I sat the top on top of the styrofoam packing the table saw came in.

One at a time I removed the thick bracing pieces and replaced them with the plywood I bought.  I added a couple additional pieces and used some additional screws to make sure the boards were locked in place.  When we picked it up after I was done it felt very solid, like it was one big section of wood instead of four smaller ones.

I was happy that when we placed it on top of the cabinet it fit cleanly instead of rocking like a see saw. It looked good.  Luckily I had a box of 2″ black wood screws.  I countersunk a couple of them around the outside edge to secure the top.  I then had Cindy act like a human clamp to allow me to secure the back splash pieces we cut.  I used a minimum of screws as I wanted to make it easy to take apart if need be.

Cindy and I then carefully positioned the cabinet into the corner, it looked pretty damn cool.  Cindy of course was very excited.  I was more relieved that once again, despite no formal planning, another spur of the moment project turned out pretty well.

There are a few things to be done yet.  Cindy is going to do some more tweaking on the top including sanding and applying a thick glaze coat.  I will probably be drilling a small hole in the back corner to allow for small appliances to be plugged into the outlet behind the cabinets. I also need to buy a small piece of kick plate to be glued to the front sections of the cabinets. Other than that, my part of it is done.  All together, if I don’t count the purchase of the table saw I spent less than $500 for the materials, not bad.

Yesterday I sort of glassed over the Christmas decorating Cindy and I did on Saturday.  We decorated the front six cabbage palms as I have done pretty much every year.  However for the first time in quite awhile I also strung lights along the front roof line of the house.  When paired with the Christmas tree in the window, the led, color changing snowmen, and the lighted Rudolph complete with a blinking red nose, I am pleased with this years decoration efforts.

My timer buddy John invited me to a FB forum that is nothing but race timers.  I posted in there about the issues I had with timing on Thanksgiving and immediately got a ton of useful feedback that will help me going forward.

My official diagnosis of the missed reads is they were the result of some sloppy placement of equipment at the finish line that put potential sources of electrical interference too close to the timing mats/cables.  In some ways the missed reads were a good thing as I have a better plan going forward when timing large events.